In November of 2022, Fort Collins City Council approved the new Land Development Code (LDC) after years of preparation, study, and public participation. As permitted by Fort Collins’ Charter, an opposition group gathered enough signatures to require a vote to approve or reject the new LDC, but City Council decided to repeal it and try again instead of submitting it to the voters.
The Fort Collins Coloradoan reported in January that the City Council’s 7-0 vote sends the staff back to the drawing board – but don’t expect them to start over entirely. The proposed LDC was intended to comply with the City Plan, which is Fort Collins’ Comprehensive Plan to guide development in the City, sometimes colloquially referred to as a “Master Plan”. The City Plan contains many goals, some of which are inherently contradictory. But the City Plan expressly encourages a wider variety of housing options and denser development in appropriate locations, which supports the goal of encouraging development of attainable housing for all of Fort Collins’ residents. The current City Council is not going to give up entirely on that goal. Allowing for development and redevelopment to have greater density will increase supply, which generally results in lower costs, or at least less aggressive cost growth. Obviously, it doesn’t always work that way. After all, Fort Collins is a great place to live, and so demand for homes will likely be high for a long time. Not all of the proposed LDC provisions are treated equally. Opponents voiced numerous concerns, but some were repeated more often than others.
The proposed LDC allowed for duplex zoning in existing residential neighborhoods which already contained covenants restricting the lots to single family homes. The idea was to allow a greater density in these zone districts in order to increase housing supply, but the LDC went so far as to state that such existing covenants were unenforceable. While the State of Colorado has public policy authority to prohibit the State courts from enforcing contractual provisions that the State deems against public policy (e.g. covenants that discriminate based on race, sex, gender, nationality, etc.), the City of Fort Collins has no such authority. Covenants are a private contractual agreement between neighbors, and the City will likely reconsider this issue in the coming year as increasing density remains.
The proposed LDC significantly limited redevelopment in the Downtown zone districts, in an effort to discourage scrape-and-build homes (which are generally quite large in comparison to the historic houses of the area), and to encourage “carriage houses” and similar structures, with the intent of increasing supply of smaller (and therefore more affordable) rental options. Property owners in the Downtown zone have expressed concern about the significant financial impact that the proposed LDC has on their properties, over and above its effects on other zone districts. Expect the City to engage closely on this issue.
Finally, and likely most importantly, the proposed LDC significantly reduced opportunities for the public to provide input on any given development application. Most such applications are either “Type 1”, which require staff review and approval by an administrative hearing officer, or “Type 2”, which require a public hearing process and approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission. The proposed LDC moved many applications that previously required Type 2 review, to instead require Type 1 review, thus significantly limiting the public opportunities to comment on pending development applications.
This issue is likely the most difficult for the City to accommodate while still aggressively pursuing the goals provided in the City Plan. Developers have lamented the significant costs associated with development in the City, especially when an organized opposition group can kill a project that is otherwise permitted in the zone district. In some circumstances this has occurred multiple times on the same property. By reducing the number and types of applications that are subject to Type 2 review, the proposed LDC provided more predictability to developers, with the intention to increase the supply of housing in the City. However, residents are unsurprisingly concerned about any action which diminishes their voice. The City has planned a robust schedule of public outreach on these and other issues with the LDC over the remainder of 2023.
The coming changes may affect your property, your neighborhood, or your business. As a current and former legal advisor to property owners, developers, and municipal governments on all facets of land use and development, and as a current member of the Larimer County Planning Commission, I enjoy digging into the details and separating the wheat from the chaff.
Written By Bob Choate
March 3rd, 2023
